Morality is not determined by the church you attend nor the faith you embrace. It is determined by the quality of your character and the positive impact you have on those you meet along your journey
Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole says he doesn't believe he could make it in the modern Republican Party.
"I doubt it," he said in an interview aired on "Fox News Sunday" when asked if his generation of Republican leaders could make it in today's GOP. "Reagan couldn't have made it. Certainly, Nixon couldn't have made it, cause he had ideas. We might've made it, but I doubt it."
"They ought to put a sign on the National Committee doors that says 'Closed for repairs,' until New Year's Day next year," he said. "And spend that time going over ideas and positive agendas."
Today's Republican party is nothing like the GOP of old.
In those days I could, and sometimes did, vote for the Republican candidate.
But to do so today would betray everything I believe, everything the Republicans I knew before believed, and, in my opinion, everything good about this country.
They are now a cancer, and the only hope for our survival is to have them removed from office en masse.
And do you know who else would agree with that? Bob Dole, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan, that's who.
Fortunately for us the country is far more liberal today than it was before, so the Republican scourge should soon be replaced by those who actually understand how to govern.
“Having worked in the Senate for seven years, I think the Senate remains a great institution which has done much, much more to be proud of than the rare occurrences that it should be ashamed of. I don’t usually think that when a vote doesn’t go my way in the United States Senate that the Senate should be ashamed of itself,” said O’Donnell in Tuesday’s edition of The Last Word.
Despite impassioned pleas from decorated veterans Sen. John Kerry and Sen. John McCain, the vote to ratify to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) fell short on Tuesday, 61 to 38. All of the opposing votes were from Republicans.
The CRPD was modeled on the Americans with Disabilities Act, a law passed by the Senate 22 years ago. Similarly, CRPD promoted nondiscrimination and accessibility measures, making sure things like sidewalk ramps and handicapped accessible restrooms are up to par with U.S. standards.
O’Donnell accused these GOP senators of failing one disabled person in particular: former Republican Majority Leader Bob Dole, himself a disabled veteran, who was sitting in a wheelchair on the chamber’s floor.
“Bob Dole reached into their hearts and today found…nothing,” said O’Donnell. “With one word–no–they failed their old friend. They dishonored themselves and they dishonored the United States Senate.
I have to admit that in the last twelve years I have become more an more cynical, but this incredibly distasteful display of cowardice by the Republican party has shocked me. And the truly puzzling part is that I cannot think if a reasonable excuse for their behavior.
It is as if they are hand me down puppets and anybody, with ANY political clout, is welcome to pull their strings.
Here is another observation.
I don't know how many of you bother to visit over at Fox, and I am certainly not suggesting you do so, but if you did you would notice that the "pundits" over there are forever worked up over something. The "War on Christmas," Obama's socialist policies, Benghazi, etc., etc., etc..
However it always feels to me as if they are playing a part. You know, as if they simply don't believe in ANY of it, but know that it fires up their audience and attracts their dimwitted viewers like moths to an open flame.
I do not have the same opinion of the folks over at MSNBC. Which is perhaps why I choose to watch them almost exclusively.
They are true believers.
When Lawrence O'Donnell goes on one of his rants, you can feel his passion. When Rachel Maddow zeroes on on a story and then explains it in terminology that makes a complicated issue accessible to the audience, you know it is important to her that you understand. When Chris Matthews cries out in frustration that the President blew his first debate, you feel that his anguish was real. The same goes for Al Sharpton and Ed Schultz.
In other words they are not simply on television to gin up ratings or sell their books, they are there to inform, to correct, and to inspire the viewer. And I have to say that they do that quite well.
